Musical runs through Dec. 23 at Players Centre for Performing Arts
There’s a swinging big band on stage for the Players Centre production of Walton Jones’ “The 1940’s Radio Hour,” an odd little musical with bit of charm. The band, featuring musicians from Pine View School, brings brassy life to this show set in a New York radio studio during the 1942 Christmas broadcast of the Mutual Manhattan Variety Cavalcade.
“The 1940’s Radio Hour” is a behind-the scenes look at a live radio broadcast, with those attending becoming the live studio audience and watching performers they usually only get to hear on the air each week. The musicians provide polished, jazzy interludes and strong backup for a number of singers, several of whom do a good job capturing the sound and performance style familiar from the World War II era.
The show actually begins about 30 minutes before the stated start time, as the crew prepares the set and the performers work with band leader Zoot Doubleman (musical director Alan Jay Corey) on some warm-ups.
That opening scene, however, and a briefer one that drags down the high spirits at the end, doesn't really work as intended. Director and choreographer Berry Ayers, like other directors before him, tries to create a sense of the frenzy to get things in place and the nonchalant attitude of the performers, who are old hands at this weekly craziness. But the improvisational nature of these segments don’t establish the characters and it it never really looks like the crew members are doing things that actually need to be done. Producer and host Clifton Feddington (played by Derek Dutcher) keeps yelling at the staff, even though everything looks ready to go.
But once the “On the Air” light goes on, the whole thing comes together, and we meet and enjoy a variety of young and more experienced singers, who perform numbers from the era, take part in some skits and dance a little. (Isn’t that odd for a radio show?)
Dutcher has some command as Clifton but he is sometimes difficult to understand. That creates some awkward moments when he joins Bill Sarazen, as the comic and singer Neil Tilden, in a streotypically silly sketch about good diction that leads to a lot of nonsensical words.
The singers include Lacey Knispel as the elegant Ann Collier, who brings tenderness and heart to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “That Old Black Magic,” and Debbie White as the big-voiced Geneva Lee Browne, who has some bright moments. Lindsay MacConnell gets some laughs as a gum-chewing singer who looks bored during the broadcast until it's her turn at the microphone.
Emma Devine is sweet as the singer and dancer Connie Miller, a recent arrival in town, who is already dating the singer BJ Gibson. He is played by Stevie Romero, who gets caught up in the spirit of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and then comes into his own when he takes over at the last minute to sing “You Go to My Head.”
He’s replacing the bitter and drunk crooner Johnny Cantone, played by Steve McAllister, whose voice is not up to the Sinatra-like character. McAllister played the title role in “The Will Rogers Follies” earlier this season where his personality helped him overcome his vocal challenges, but he doesn’t have that opportunity here.
As he did years ago at Manatee Players, trumpeter Victor Mongillo touches the heart as the soldier Biff Baker, the musician (and singer) who is heading overseas.
Ken Junkins’ set recalls an actual radio studio, with plenty of room for the band and the sound booth where Craig Engle and Miranda Becker create the acoustical effects required for key moments. The costumes by Jared E. Walker fit the period.
Despite the occasional missteps and an emotionless ending that takes too long, Ayers and his cast do capture the spirit of a bygone period, when radio could capture our imagination and bring us all a little closer.